


Happy Hour

by j_quadrifrons



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Drunkenness, Gen, Team Bonding, but he could fight with melanie in his sleep, canon-typical Martin pining, jealous Martin, jon is an affectionate drunk, misuse of compulsion powers, team bonding gone slightly wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:22:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21763690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_quadrifrons/pseuds/j_quadrifrons
Summary: The world might be about to end, and Basira insists that they all take a break, maybe have a few drinks. The world might be ending, and they might as well attempt to have a good time, right?Melanie's idea of a good time is not quite what anyone had in mind.(Set between 117 Testament and 118 The Masquerade)
Comments: 47
Kudos: 427





	Happy Hour

It starts at dinner.

Basira’s convinced them all to go out together. These little team-building rituals, she says, are important, and after all, they’re going to be saving the world tomorrow. Even Martin is a little skeptical – Tim hasn’t been okay for months, all Melanie wants to talk about is various ways to murder Elias, and Jon has never in living memory so much as gone out for drinks with the rest of the team – but somehow her calm confidence that she’s speaking so much sense that they all have to agree with her carries the day. They wind up at a little Italian place Martin has been wanting to check out for a while, and for a few minutes it’s nice. It seems wrong, going out without Sasha; he hasn't been out with coworkers since Sasha, but it’s nice to have everyone together and vaguely civilized for once.

(Well. Almost everyone. Daisy doesn't join them, and no one asks about her. Martin tries to pretend it isn't a relief.)

It can’t last, of course. Martin doesn’t catch the remark that sets it off – he’s too busy worrying over how quickly Tim laid claim to the entire bottle of wine, and he has been trying to spend less time watching every single thing that Jon does – but then again, Melanie and Jon are at each other’s throats more often than not. It might well be the continuation of an argument they were already having. Problem is, Melanie has started punctuating every cutting remark with a swig from her wineglass, and Jon is following suit.

Martin’s never imagined Jon drunk. He is, quite frankly, more than a little bit worried. He doesn’t particularly want to get banned from what really is a nice little restaurant because his boss started a fistfight over the antipasta.

“Get your own,” Tim says when Melanie reaches for the bottle to refill her glass, and she rolls her eyes and waves down the waiter.

“Are you sure that’s a good...” Martin starts to suggest, but it’s clear no one’s going to listen to him, as usual. He eyes the new bottle, close by Melanie’s elbow. He wouldn’t mind another glass of wine, if this is what the evening is going to be like, but he’s not prepared to fight either Melanie or Tim for it, and that seems to be his only option.

Basira drops into the seat next to him and Martin starts, knocking over his own (tragically empty) wineglass. She picks it up for him, setting it down a little further away. She’d started out sitting further away, but apparently when she got up Melanie decided to move closer to Jon, the better to conduct their argument.

(“As if you’d know anything about practical methods!” she’s saying, indignant, gesturing with the wine bottle so fiercely that the waiter has to do a particularly tricky two-step to keep from dropping their dinners on her head.)

At least with the two of them next to each other the volume’s gone down a little bit.

Martin meets her eye, shrugs a little. “It was a nice idea,” he says apologetically.

“Nah,” Basira says, a light in her eyes Martin isn’t sure he likes. “I think they’re enjoying themselves. Besides,” she adds, leaning back in her chair, “I told the waiter to keep their glasses full.”

“I really don’t think that’s a good idea,” Martin mutters, but he’s grateful to be able to wrangle another glass of wine out of the arrangement anyway.

They do seem to mellow out a little, by the time they're halfway through the food and all the way through the second bottle of wine. They're still arguing, but it's less vicious, more like the kind of academic debate Martin remembers Jon getting into with the other researchers. Also they're getting...very close. Practically shoulder to shoulder as Melanie sketches something out on a napkin and Jon mutters about what the paper fibers are doing to his fountain pen. Martin is absolutely not jealous. Jon hates Melanie. And he doesn't want to fight with Jon, that's ridiculous.

When Jon kicks off a rant on the implausibility of EVPs, Tim takes pity on him and offers him the last of his bottle. Martin takes it gratefully.

* * *

It’s half nine and Colin’s gotten all the regulars settled and the dinner crowd taken care of when a group rolls in that’s already a little too drunk for the hour, but that’s not entirely unusual on a Friday night and he's willing to see how things play out. The lanky, good-looking fellow who pays for an entire bottle of whiskey before he sits down seems to be content to park himself in a corner and observe, which seems safe enough, and the no-nonsense woman wearing a hijab orders beers for the rest of them. They take over a corner table: the two of them; a tall chubby guy who looks embarrassed to be seen in public with them;and a couple, a short man with the kind of bags under his eyes that mean he hasn't seen regular sleep in months with his arm around the shoulders of a red-haired woman who's glued to his side but also looks a little like she wants to murder him.

Colin figures the murder and the exhaustion are probably related. He can sympathize, which is why he doesn't hesitate when the ginger drags her boyfriend up to the bar and orders shots to go with their beers. They both look like they could use it.

They're in the middle of a fight about work. Colin isn't eavesdropping, he's doing his job; it's a bartender's job to find a diplomatic answer when someone asks him to weigh in on an argument, and he can't do that if he isn't paying some kind of attention.

"It's not as though I can go for a week's holiday in Cyprus," the man is saying, exasperated. This is not the first time they've had this discussion, Colin's sure. "I mean, look what happened the last time I left the country."

"That's not the point, Jon," the woman says, downing her vodka as punctuation. She doesn't even flinch. "The point is that you are on a _salary_. Unlike some of us, who rely on the _fickle whims_ of the YouTube algorithm for our income, you could take a _fucking_ day off sometimes."

Colin winces. The gig economy is brutal, and he's grateful to be out of it. He pours them another couple of shots without asking, although the man – Jon – hasn't drunk his first one yet. Jon looks skeptically at the two glasses sitting in front of him, then downs one with a grimace.

"You're on salary too, now," he grumbles, not as though he thinks it's a decent point.

Either they're on the verge of a breakup or trying to come back from one. But they've been in each other's personal space since they came in, so Colin doesn't think he's about to witness anything too messy. Colin checks out the rest of their group in the corner. Tall and shy is watching the couple at the bar anxiously, but the other two seem mostly unbothered. Coming back from a breakup, he decides. Jon did something stupid – a public proposal, maybe? He looks like the type who might go in for idiotic romantic gestures – and she broke up with him instead, and now their friends have dragged them out to force them to make up. It might even be working.

"When was the last time you did anything fun?" she's asking him, pointing her empty shot glass at his face. "When was the last time you had a conversation with anyone that wasn't about something horrible?"

"Melanie..." Jon sighs, drops his head for a moment, then lifts it up and downs his second shot.

"No, Jon," she says, "you're so worried about your _humanity_. Normal humans have conversations with other people! About something other than the worst thing that ever happened to them! Here," she says, grabbing his arm and catching the eye of a pair of girls sat next to them at the bar, who haven't been as good as Colin at pretending they aren't listening. "Come on, at least say hello to the people whose evening you're ruining."

" _I'm_ ruining," Jon mutters, but he turns around.

* * *

Martin is pretty sure he's never felt this awkward in his life. And, him being who he is, that is really saying something. Tim was the one who recommended the bar, but since they arrived he hasn't said a word, just sat down with an entire bottle of whiskey and gone to work. Basira is willing to make polite conversation, but Martin has no idea what to say to her, never has, and it trails off pretty quickly. And Jon –

Jon and Melanie are at the bar, continuing their argument, and doing shots. Martin is pretty sure the world really is about to end if Jonathan Sims is doing shots. (Must be vodka, Martin thinks, if they're drinking them like that, and goes a little dizzy at the thought of Jon doing body shots of tequila.) With the amount of alcohol they've been putting away they are surely both _very_ drunk by now, though the only outward sign is that they seem to be using one another to stay vertical. Somehow it isn't surprising that Jon's voice only gets sharper when he's drunk.

Somehow Melanie's roped a couple of strangers into their conversation, which makes Martin cringe with secondhand embarrassment. The two young women look barely old enough to be out drinking, but they're having that kind of stubbornly good time that means they're drinking down an ex-boyfriend. Martin cannot imagine that talking to Jon is going to improve their night. (He loves the man, but Martin can acknowledge that he is possibly the only person in the world who's ever felt better after a conversation with Jonathan Sims.)

But actually they look...fine? Kind of giggly, if not actually flirtatious. (Martin tries to cover a twist of jealousy with beer, but his glass is empty.) Melanie gestures at a tall black man who's just come up to the bar, and Jon tilts his head and says something. The guy answers immediately, then frowns a little, like he hadn't meant to do that.

Oh. Oh god. Martin sits up straight in his seat, jostling Tim enough that he actually looks over at Martin for the first time in half an hour. "What the hell?" Tim says, softened enough by whiskey that it actually sounds concerned instead of aggressive.

Martin gestures helplessly toward the bar, where Melanie is leaning on Jon, who is talking to strangers who are _answering his questions_. Tim makes a face in their general direction. "He's – he's doing the Archivist thing," Martin hisses.

"What?" Tim takes a moment to process this, then laughs dryly. "Of fucking course," he says, shaking his head. He gives Martin a long, considering look, then pours a measure of whiskey into the bottom of Martin's empty glass.

* * *

A truly responsible bartender would probably start to think about discouraging these two, but despite their antagonistic nosiness everyone at the bar seems to be having a grand time. Also, Melanie threw down a pile of cash several drinks ago and asked for "something more colorful," and Colin's having fun layering shots and gauging the look on Jon's face when he swallows them. He winces at too much sugar, but Colin thinks he's just about got something the guy will actually like.

Melanie probably doesn't taste them at all, he thinks, but she's been effusive about the artistry. A fellow likes to be appreciated.

"Apparently these nice people can't tell how much of an arsehole you are," Melanie says to Jon, despite the fact that she was the one who basically forced him to start talking to strangers in the first place. "Either that or." And a realization dawns in her eyes. What it is, Colin hasn't the first clue, but she seems delighted by it. “Are you doing...it? Are you doing the thing?” Melanie hisses at Jon, and he opens and closes his mouth a few times.

"I –" he pauses, thinking very hard. (Colin is very familiar with this look. Drunk people have to work to think.) "I don’t think I can _not_."

Melanie _grins_.

“Hey,” she says, nudging Jon with her shoulder, which is really more like a collapse into his side. “Hey. Ask that guy about his favorite birthday.” When Jon gives her a look that would probably be withering if he were sober, she says, “I dare you,” and hands him another shot. Yeah, Colin should probably cut them off pretty soon, but he really wants to know what “the thing” is.

“Fine,” Jon says, exasperated, and uses Melanie's shoulder to balance himself as he turns to the man sitting at the end of the bar, a couple of empty seats away from them. The motion barely disrupts Melanie, who drapes herself over his back, chin hooked on his shoulder, to listen. “What was your favorite birthday?”

This is where it goes wrong, Colin thinks. Nobody ever talks to Matthew, and he never talks to anybody else. He's a functional alcoholic, emphasis on the functional, coming in every night at half five and drinking steadily until closing time. Avoiding his wife, surely, given the tarnished gold on his ring finger. Colin thinks she might be ill, that Matthew is avoiding dealing with it, though he knows he tends to think the best of people. But he's not so delusional to think that a man so thoroughly, determinedly pickled is going to take well to being asked personal questions by a total stranger.

To his unmitigated shock, Matthew answers. His voice is raspy with disuse, but it loosens up as he tells a story about his usually-absent father taking him for a seaside holiday on his tenth birthday. You'd never have thought, Colin marvels, that a guy like that could talk so beautifully about the color of the sky and the taste of the wind on a day that must have been fifty years ago now. Matthew is even smiling a little when he finishes, an expression that sits strangely on his face.

Jon clears his throat uncomfortably in the ensuing silence. Melanie laughs and claps a little, and Matthew scowls and turns back to his beer. " _Fantastic_ ," she says, and though it's none of his business Colin's gratified to see her something other than angry with her boyfriend (fiance? If he plays his cards right. Colin wishes him luck). She nods at Frank, who's come back up to the bar to order another round for the casual football team he captains. "Ask him about his childhood pet."

They go on for a bit, generating a surprisingly friendly atmosphere around what is honestly usually a pretty quiet bar, in spite of Jon's very abrupt method of questioning. Everyone responds to it, though, coming out with universally lovely stories about old friends, long holidays, first dates. They're not going through the shots as quickly now either, which is just as well, because although Melanie no longer has to actually use Jon to keep herself vertical, Jon himself doesn't seem to be sobering up at all. If anything, he looks hazier than ever. Finally all catching up to him, Colin decides, not without sympathy, and puts a glass of water in front of him. Melanie wrinkles her nose at it, and Colin passes her another shot, gin and elderflower with a splash of grenadine. It looks girly, but she seems to like the florals. Colin thinks he could get used to this. Maybe, if things go well, these folks will become regulars.

A good-looking young guy detaches from his date to step up to the bar next to them, and Melanie grins. “Ask him about his first time!” she suggests, and throws down her shot. Okay, now that’s pushing it a little, Colin thinks, Jon’s gonna get himself decked at last, but he's clearly gotten used to following Melanie's instructions over the course of the last half an hour. The question is out of Jon’s mouth before anyone has a chance to think, and the guy starts to answer. In detail.

* * *

When Basira comes back with another beer for each of them (or, more likely, one for herself and two for Martin, because Tim's not going to touch his), Martin is gratified to see that her eyes are wide and a little horrified. "Jon's doing the –"

"Yep," Martin says wearily, "figured that one out." He takes a deep drink, then another one. And another. On his other side, Tim is flirting almost reflexively with a couple of women who had spent ten minutes telling stories to Jon before winding up over here. They don't seem any worse for the experience, at least.

"Yikes," Basira says, without any real distress.

Up at the bar, Jon asks a question that Martin doesn't catch, Melanie grins, the bartender frowns, and an extremely cute guy in first-date clothes launches enthusiastically into a story. At least nobody's telling horror stories this time, which is more than a little surprising, really. He'd kind of thought that any spooky powers Jon might have were geared exclusively toward horrible things, but he seems to be getting people to tell him...nice things. The cute guy is actually getting a little misty-eyed, and Martin doesn't like the way Jon leans in closer, even if his face is set in a firm lack of expression, even if Martin knows he always gets like this when people are giving statements. Does this count as giving statements? Can you give statements that aren't about the worst thing that ever happened to you? Martin tries to fantasize about working for a supernatural organization that collects nice statements, but he can't make the image cohere in his brain.

Cute Guy has wrapped up his story, and as he snaps out of the compulsion he turns beet red and flees without his drinks. The bartender, only a little less red, starts fussing with the glasses behind the bar. Melanie is laughing so hard she's collapsed on Jon's shoulder again, which come on, is that really necessary? Jon's mouth twists oddly. "Sounds fake but okay," he says, and throws back another of Melanie's ridiculous shots.

When Basira's hauled Martin off the floor and back into his seat (look, he knows Jon is a millennial, okay, but he doesn't _act_ like one, he certainly doesn't _quote memes_ , this was a terrible idea and Martin more certain than ever that he is not going to survive the evening), she says thoughtfully, "If he keeps this up he's going to get a real statement whether he wants one or not."

"I've been trying not to think about it," Martin says, head in his hands. The problem is, he's got room for about two thoughts in his head right now. One of them, sure, is the fear that, knowing their luck (and, frankly, the proportion of people in the greater London area who have had some kind of run-in or other with a monster), sooner or later this entire evening is going to go very, very wrong. The other one, though, is that Jon is apparently an affectionate drunk. Yes, Melanie's mostly the one who's been draping herself over him, but Jon keeps leaning on her, touching her arm – admittedly usually to move it out of the way, but that's more than Martin has ever seen Jon touch literally anyone else, ever. He can't believe he knows this about Jon, wishes very much that he didn't know it, but he can't un-know it now, which is what you get for working for the evil incarnation of the abstract fear of knowledge, he supposes.

Right now Jon has one hand on Melanie's knee, steadying himself after a frankly distressing wobble when he turned in his seat to speak to another stranger. Terror is much safer, Martin decides. Jon is asking a stressed-looking Caribbean lady with an undercut about her favorite movie theatre. Martin pictures haunted filmstrips, crowd-eating fires, the feel of something breathing on the back of your neck in the dark while the credits roll. The Caribbean lady is smiling, Martin can’t quite pick her words out of the background noise but he can hear the cheerful lilt of her accent, and she turns back to her friend with a roll of her eyes but they’re both laughing.

Martin leans back in his seat with a sigh. Tim is frowning thoughtfully at a pair of phone numbers scribbled on a napkin on the table in front of him. Basira just takes a sip of her drink, watching everything. She seems fine, at least. Someone here ought to be fine, because it's certainly not Martin.

* * *

He's just run out of blue curaçao when the big guy comes to collect his friends, which is just as well because Colin doesn't want to tell Melanie that her drinks are about to get less exciting. She'd pout, and Colin can't resist a pretty pouting girl, even if she's ten years younger than him and out with her boyfriend-maybe-fiance. Instead she's pouting at her friend, who is entirely unmoved. He reaches to steady her when she hops off the barstool but she shoves him off, which shoves her in turn into the bar, so at least she doesn't wind up face-down on the floor. Jon is more accepting of help, leaning gratefully on the taller man's shoulder until it looks like he's using him to bear up nearly all his weight. The tall guy wraps a careful arm around Jon's waist and meets Colin's eyes very determinedly to ask if he needs to cover the tab.

The guy is probably a little drunker than he thinks he is; he hasn't ordered a drink for himself all evening but his friends have been passing things to him all night. He's staying vertical, but he tips like a drunk guy, which Colin is happy to accept. It's probably good for him, Colin reasons; the guy seems like he's stressed a lot. Not surprising, if he's trying to mediate between a relationship like this. (Melanie isn't paying any attention to Jon, too focused on her own balance, which is just good enough that Colin doesn't have to feel guilty for indulging her.)

Back in the corner, the good-looking guy downs the last of his bottle of whiskey and stalks for the door, leaving his collection of phone numbers on the table; he's followed closely by the stern-eyed woman who still looks as sober as a judge. The five of them make an awkward group, certainly, but they seem much happier than they were when they came in. And there's at least one sober person to get the happy couple home safely. Colin imagines them waking up miserably hung over but together, swapping apologies and aspirin. He knows he didn't have much to do with it, but he's proud of them anyway. They're very sweet, really, even if the guy is a little odd.

* * *

"Where does Jon live anyway, when he's not on the run from a murder charge?" Basira asks as they pile up in a loose cluster on the sidewalk outside.

Jon doesn't answer, of course; he's leaning so hard into Martin's side that Martin is starting to suspect he's fallen asleep standing up. He's _snuggling_ , which is wonderful and horrible in equal measure, and it takes Martin a second to realize that Tim and Basira are waiting for him to answer.

"I don't – why do you think I know that? It's not like we – I don't know where he lives, that would be _weird_ ," he says, too defensively. Tim snorts and rolls his eyes.

Basira looks like she doesn't believe him, which is terribly unfair, but what she says is, "I guess we could call that friend of his, the one he was staying with? Georgina something?"

That's enough to pull Jon back to some level of awareness, apparently; he lifts his head from Martin's chest and says, with careful articulation, "Absolutely not. It is two in the morning, she would murder us and then the Admiral will eat us. The Admiral," he says firmly, "is very good, but he has no loyalty when it comes to food."

Melanie nods vigorously at this, then looks as if she's about to throw up. "He's right," she croaks. "No loyalty at all."

There's a long silence while no one is quite sure what to say to that. Somewhere in between Jon tucking himself back into Martin's chest and the thoughtful look Basira is giving both of them Martin is wondering what it means that Jon and Melanie apparently have this Georgie person in common, but he files that away as a problem for sober Martin. Sober Martin, he is well aware, will worry it into the ground, but he really doesn't have the attention to spare for that right now.

"You know what," Tim says, "I'm not going to ask. And also I'm going home, while I'm still drunk enough that I almost like you all." He gives a half-salute that's almost completely steady and strides off, loose-limbed and purposeful, looking almost like himself again.

Basira's frowning at her phone, Martin assumes ordering an Uber or something, until a black cab pulls up to the curb in front of them and she gives a little sigh of relief when she notices. "Well, there's that cot in the Archives, right?" she says, and Martin sighs.

"I'm not sure I've got the cash –" he starts to object when she pulls open the door and gives the cabbie the address, but Basira just shrugs at him. "We'll expense it," she says, "it's not like Elias is going to have time to pitch a fit about cab fare, right?"

"That's the plan," he agrees, but the combination of alcohol and the reminder of what's coming are starting to take their toll, and Martin is starting to feel a little shaky. He thinks he'd very much like to go home and collapse.

But before he can do that, there's Jon and Melanie to deal with. Basira helps wrangle them into the cab, despite Jon's protest that he's perfectly fine and all of this is completely unnecessary. It's hardly worth pointing out that he's not really staying vertical under his own power; he wouldn't acknowledge it anyway. Melanie is also insisting that she's fine, though with less conviction, and Martin suspects it's more that she refuses to not be fine if Jon is fine. Which is how Martin winds up in the middle of the bench seat, with Jon curled up against him on one side and Melanie sprawled out on the other. He's wondering which one of them to shift to make room for Basira when she leans in with one hand braced on the doorframe and says, "I've got something I've got to follow up on; you can take care of these two, yeah?"

"Don't need taking care of," Jon mutters into Martin's shoulder, his breath hot and close, and Martin curses the blush running up the back of his neck.

"Sure," he absolutely does not squeak, and Basira gives him a brisk nod and sends them off.

In the end, the cab doesn't charge them at all, which is unsettling but not something Martin's prepared to argue with at all. He has to nudge Jon awake to get him out of the cab, but they're all able to make it through the side entrance and down into the Archives without serious injury. There is still the cot in Document Storage, the one Martin spent months sleeping in after Prentiss; and yes, he knows that Jon also sleeps there when he stays too late and misses the last train home, but he's never actually seen it before, and the easy way Jon kicks off his shoes and collapses into it makes something twist sharply in Martin's chest.

And then Melanie grumbles something about "inadequate facilities" and drops into the cot next to him. It's barely big enough for one person, really, but Jon and Melanie together make up about one of Martin, and apparently under these circumstances neither of them have any sense of personal space whatsoever.

He lets himself be jealous for a moment; he's drunk, and tired, and either the world's about to end or it's not, it seems only fair. But he also doesn't have the energy to untangle the two of them, and if they wake up embarrassed and hung over it serves them both right. He ought to go home, he thinks to himself, and sleep properly in his own bed, let them deal with each other in the morning with no buffer. Honestly, it's not his responsibility, he's gotten them someplace safe and his obligations have been fulfilled.

Martin falls asleep over his desk, head pillowed on his folded arms, the door to Document Storage standing open so he can catch the first sounds of distress in the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> Please come yell about TMA with me, I have too many feelings  
> [@j_quadrifrons](https://twitter.com/j_quadrifrons), [backofthebookshelf](https://backofthebookshelf.tumblr.com)


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